Share the Load

I am thankful to Ariel for giving me this opportunity to add my powerful voice to the Ariel #ShareTheLoad activity at BlogAdda!
“I am joining the Ariel #ShareTheLoad campaign at BlogAdda and blogging about the prejudice related to household chores being passed on to the next generation.”
A gender double standard has always been a part of our society till today. I have been witnessing such indiscrimination’s since childhood. Household chores are the exclusive domain of women and men are not expected to do domestic and kitchen work. Why this discrimination. It is true children learn from their parents and follow what is happening in the house. Its shocking but true that 2 out of every 3 children think that washing clothes is a mothers job.78% of girls in India agree that they should learn laundry as they will have to do it when they grow up. When girls are working full time then why 81% of married men of India agree that their daughters must learn household chores. While we talk of equality of both genders the mindset of people are the same. I have been seeing my grand mother doing all the household work and my mother was taught the same that all the household work is to be done by the women of the house including the laundry of the males of the house. Now in today’s scenario when girls are working and are financially independent but still she is expected to do the laundry of the household. If any male is seen doing the laundry he is called a joru ka gulam or being criticized by elders and friends. When I met a boy for matrimonial alliance I was told clearly that apart from doing my job I was supposed to do the entire house cleaning and washing the clothes. I want a husband who respects women’s independence and agrees to share the workload including helping me with the laundry. 

Women are treated like prisoners no magazines to read, no outings or parties. Girls were not even allowed to talk loudly whereas the boys are allowed to shout, play and run carefree. And these rules were handed over from one women generation to another. I always heard in my childhood from my grandmother that being woman was a curse. Today women are lucky and have wide opportunities. We are career women, homemaker or both. Both roles are demanding, competition oriented multiple roles which are both an emotional and physical stress for women. Unfortunately women lack support of family. Women have developed more through the passage of time they are good in offices and good homemakers and bringing up children as well. But these demanding multiple roles do not leave enough time for themselves. Let’s break this prejudice and stop passing this wrong ideology to our next generation.

 “I am joining the Ariel #ShareTheLoad campaign at BlogAdda and blogging about the prejudice related to household chores being passed on to the next generation.”

Laundry is not a womans job alone

Today woman is economically independent. She is a good homemaker as well as a good in her office work. But managing all the roles leaves her very stressed and may be this is the reason that there are more cases of divorce, domestic violence in spite of the fact that there are less extended family these days. It is important to have a right balance between young couples so when both wife and husband are working then they should share the work load equally as well. I love socializing with my friends. After spending a hectic week schedule I plan group activities like shopping, movies, outing with family and friends. Whenever I ask my best friend to join me on a Sunday for an outing she always refuses only because she does all the laundry on a Sunday. One day out of curiosity I visited her to see why she says she is doing the laundry every Sunday. I was shocked to see pile of clothes stacked in the laundry bag. I asked her why so many clothes are lying in a corner. She told me as she is a working lady and she does not get enough time to clean clothes on work days so all the family members stack up the dirty clothes and linen in the corner so that my friend who gets only one break in a week can clean the clothes. I asked her where are the other members of her family and why don’t they help her in doing this job after all it’s not her work to wash all alone the clothes of the entire family. She took a deep sigh and told me that her husband has taken the children for an outing and moreover cleaning clothes is supposed to be a woman’s job. Her mother, grand mother has been doing the same and she has to follow the same routine. She questioned me if I had ever seen any advertisement on TV where the husband or a male of the house is shown doing the laundry. It is always a female model that is shown cleaning the clothes for it’s only a woman’s domain. House work including laundry is only the responsibility of the women of the house. If the clothes are not nicely washed or cleaned it’s her responsibility only. Whether she wishes to clean or not it’s her ultimate duty. Even my friends little children don’t find it odd that their mother is cleaning their dirty clothes while they are enjoying their weekend with their friends. Its strange that we are progressing but our mindsets are still the same.
Its time to fight back the imbalance within the household by asking #IsLaundryOnlyAWomansJob
and asking men to #ShareTheLoad. We need a long term solution to this problem by nipping the prejudice at the bud. Children learn what they see and what they are taught by their parents. So if they see that household chores are the exclusive domain of women, they will carry this prejudice into their adult lives and expect the women to do all the chores and especially laundry..

“I am joining the Ariel #ShareTheLoad campaign at BlogAdda and blogging about the prejudice related to household chores being passed on to the next generation.”